Once again, ETA and its victims have become throwing weapon of the right against the Government more than a decade after the terrorist organization abandoned its armed activity.
On this occasion, he was the leader of the PP, Alberto Nunez Feijoowho has stirred up tensions not only in the PSOE, but also among relatives of ETA victims by assuring little more than Michelangelo Whiteassassinated by ETA in 1997, died for nothing, in reference to the last approaches of ETA prisoners to Basque prisons.
The trigger was the transfer of thirteen ETA inmates, including two of its former leaders: Henri Parot Y Francisco Javier Garcia Gaztelualiases Txapotethe latter, convicted of a dozen murders, including that of the young PP councilor 25 years ago.
Txapote He is also serving 500 years in prison for assassination of Gregorio Ordonezleader of the Basque PP assassinated in 1995. And it has been his sister, Consuelo Ordóñez, president of the Collective of Victims of Terrorism (COVITE), who has once again disfigured the partisan use of ETA victims, since also during the governments of the PP prisoners were also approached to Euskadi.
“Humiliation” of victims and “blackmail” of Bildu
Both PP and Ciudadanos have considered this movement, in addition to a “humiliation” for the victims, a product of EH Bildu’s “blackmail” of Moncloa to guarantee its parliamentary support, despite the fact that ETA’s policy of approaching prisoners has been usual, especially since the organization stopped attacking.
But for Feijóo, this move is proof that “Bildu lives very well with [Pedro] Sanchez“, and has gone even further this Thursday by remembering the murder of Miguel Ángel Blanco. According to him, “He died because the PP government did not accept the blackmail of bringing ETA prisoners closer with blood crimes without previously having repented”, he said at an act in Zaragoza on the occasion of the start of the school year. “Now his murderer is in the Basque Country”added Feijóo.
When Blanco was kidnapped, ETA demanded that all the prisoners of the terrorist organization be brought to prisons in Euskadi within 48 hours. After two days of tension and a huge citizen mobilization throughout the Basque Country and at a national level, the young councilor was found on a forest track with two shots to the head. Two hours of agony later, he died in the hospital.
“Many socialist voters are not going to accept this”, Feijóo insisted today, who however did not mention that During the Government of José María Aznar, more than 400 ETA inmates were brought to Basque prisons. Even so, the leader of the PP has asked for “apologies in the name of politics to all the victims of terrorism” for these reported transfers and subjected to judicial control.
Ordóñez: “It’s called coherence”
Precisely Ordóñez, president of COVITE and victim of ETA, who has lamented this political use of the murdered. In a Twitter thread, Gregorio Ordóñez’s sister has assured that has never criticized the approaches of ETA prisoners to Euskadi. “I did not do it with Zapatero, I did not do it with Rajoy, I am not going to do it now with this government. Nor have I ever criticized the prison policies of the different governments. It is called coherence!”
“I am very calm because the important thing is not where they serve their sentences, but that they serve themand fortunately this does not depend on the central government or the Basque Government, it depends on the judges of the AN [Audiencia Nacional] who condemned them. Only they are the competent ones “, he highlighted.
The president of COVITE has also recalled that, since Felipe González, all governments have brought ETA inmates closer to Basque prisons. Specifically, according to official data, 556 were transferred during the tenure of Gonzalez, 426 during the of Aznar, 237 during the of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero Y 40 with Rajoy. However, Ordóñez points out, the approach of prisoners has only become a controversy against the Government since 2018.
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